March 16, 2025 – At the Liberal Leadership Debate in February, he stood there: tall and slim in a dark suit, looking smart, calm and confident, clean cut, and effortlessly debonair as a distinguished world leader should look.
And that was what I prayed he would be as I watched him that night – Mark Carney, economist, pragmatist, and as the first practicing Catholic Prime Minister in Canada’s 158-year-history as a country, God may be on his side.
When it was Carney’s turn to speak, he was in complete control of the situation – cool, soft-spoken but firm with plans for economic security based on decades of crisis management worldwide. It was his baptism of fire. At 60, he looked fit to fight and outlive Trump who at 79 is fat, unhealthy, and full of bile.
Before this February debate, not many of the 42 million Canadians had heard of Carney even though he was named the 8th governor of the Bank of Canada in 2007, where he guided Canadian monetary policy during the global financial crisis of 2008. He led the Canadian central bank until 2013 when he was appointed as the 120th governor of the Bank of England, to lead the U.K. central bank's response to Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic from 2019 to 2020. Additionally, he was the chair of the Financial Stability Board from 2011 to 2018.
Brief Bio
Carney graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics from Harvard University in 1988, on to Oxford University for a master's in 1993 and a doctoral in 1995. At Harvard, he was backup goalie for the varsity ice hockey team. He was co-captain with David Lametti of the Oxford University Ice Hockey Club.
Carney held various roles at Goldman Sachs, before joining the Department of Finance Canada in 2004 as senior associate deputy minister. Following his governorships, he served as chair and head of impact investing at Brookfield Asset Management and as chair of the new board of directors for Bloomberg L.P. He was also United Nations Special Envoy for climate action and finance. Carney was later an informal advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the COVID-19 pandemic and following that, the chair of the Liberal Party's economic growth taskforce. He resigned from all positions in January 2025 to run for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada.
Personal life
Carney was born on March 16, 1965, in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories and raised in Edmonton, Alberta; the son of Verlie Margaret (née Kemper) and Robert James Martin Carney, both teachers.
He met his wife, Diana Fox, a British economist specializing in developing nations, while at the University of Oxford. She is active in various environmental and social justice causes. They married in July 1994 while he was finishing his doctoral thesis. They have four children.
He is an Irish and British citizen in addition to holding Canadian citizenship. He is a practicing Catholic. In 2015, he was named as the most influential Catholic in Britain by The Tablet.After winning the Liberal Party leadership with an 85.9 % of the vote on March 9, he may soon be the most popular and influential practicing Catholic in Canada as Canada’s 24th Prime Minister after this upcoming Federal election.
What Carney Plans to do as Canada’s Prime Minister
While 13 premieres each advocating for specific interests unified Canada’s response to Trump’s tariffs, Carney felt that Canada must fight the tariffs as one country with one economy, not thirteen.
To do that, now more than ever, Canada needs a steady hand on the wheel to ensure that all provinces and territories are equally protected from Trump’s tariffs and land grab.
Like Putin who annexed the Ukraine by force, Trump is using tariffs to annex Canada and take over its natural resources like critical minerals, electricity, fresh water of which Canada has the most in the world, and other natural resources. To paraphrase Trump himself, he and Putin are “gambling with World War IIII” just like Hitler when he started WWII by grabbing Poland.
Before this Trump Catastrophe, Canada lived peacefully with the US. But as the second largest country in the world with only 42 million Canadians to protect it, Canada must now unite and strengthen ties with like-minded countries to survive in a challenging new world order.
As Prime Minister, Carney plans to do just that: unify a one-nation-Canada to stand up to Trump with Canada’s reciprocal tariffs in place until all new US tariffs are rescinded. Thus united, strong and stable, Canadians will win this unjust and unnecessary trade war.
Editor of Canadian Filipino Net
Eleanor R. Laquian has written four best-selling books, and co-authored four others with husband Prod Laquian. She has served in various capacities at the University of British Columbia’s Institute of Asian Research as manager of administration and programs; editor and chair, publications committee; and primary researcher of the Asian Immigration to Canada project. She has a degree in journalism from Maryknoll College in the Philippines, and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of the Philippines. She did postgraduate studies at the School of Public Communications, Boston University in the U.S.
She has been researching and writing about Filipino immigration to Canada since 1969. For her Master's degree in Public Administration at the university of the Philippines, she conducted in 1972 the first, and up to now, the only nationwide survey of Filipinos in Canada. It was done by mailed questionnaires with self addressed stamped envelopes for replies and followed up by personal in depth interviews of respondents who agreed to be interviewed, Interviews were done on a two-week drive from Ottawa to Vancouver in the summer of '72.
Her Master's thesis was published in 1973 in Ottawa by the United Council of Filipino Associations in Canada. It was titled A Study of Filipino Immigrants in Canada, 1962 - 1972. As the primary researcher of UBC Institute of Asian Research immigration Project, she edited in 1998 a book titled The Silent Debate: Asian Immigration and Racism in Canada published by UBC. In 2005 she co-authored with her husband a book to update her MA thesis and titled it Seeking a Better Life Abroad: A Study of Filipinos in Canada 1957 - 2007. It was published in 2008 by Anvil Publishing in Manila.In 2023 she edited Indomitable Canadian Filipinos, a book on the 70-year history of Filipinos in Canada, published by Friesen Press in Manitoba, Canada.
Canadian Filipino Net is an independent, non-profit digital magazine produced by volunteer writers, editors, and webmasters. Your donation will go a long way so we can continuously publish stories about Canadian Filipinos. Click on a donate button and proceed either through PayPal, Debit, or Credit Card.